I purchased Swift Publisher because someone told me you could do greeting cards.

After purchase I was disappointed to find that you can only do flat one-sided cards printed four on a page -- NO CONVENTIONAL FOLDED GREETING CARDS. I want to insert my own photo on the front, blank inside, then some text on the back.

Am I missing something? Do I need additional templates? Please help -- got to get my Christmas cards printed and sent out ASAP. Thanks.

Last edited by richpate on December 13th, 2010, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In our software you can customize templates (edit text, add or remove images, etc.). Sure you can add your photos to the design.

I don't see any templates for folded greeting cards. You can create the paper layout for this card by yourself. If you are going to print on plain paper and then trim, limit the space on the page using the guide lines. If you are using a greeting card paper stock, choose the corresponding paper size in File > Page Setup. Then you can add the vertical guide line to mark up the fold line by choosing Insert > Vertical Guide.

Another our program Labels & Addresses provides paper layouts of popular postcard papers (Avery, APLI and others). If you prefer to print on such paper, see if Labels & Addresses is helpful for you.

I bought Swift Publisher about an hour or so ago. Nick I feel has not understood your question which is how to turn an A4 piece of card into an A5 card after one fold (say). You want to print on the front of it, the inside and possibly the back page? You then either have a duplex printer, or then feed the paper in twice - one to print pages 1 and 4 (front and back) and then 2 and 3 (the inside pages) ?

We have got as far as a 4 page booklet, and putting designs on pages 1 and 3 (front and inside cover). The solution seems to be to set page size to A5 and imposition in the print options to A4 (given European paper sizes) and reading the help, but we haven't quite got the printing bit worked out yet. When we try and print only the front pages, then the design goes wrong, even though print preview suggests it should work.If we do not specify front or back we can print correctly but on 2 pieces of paper. it is specifying front or back that is defeating us at the moment but we need to do this to allow us to feed the same piece of paper through again since we have a normal printer not a duplex printer.

Let us know if you get it sorted. In the meanwhile if (when) we get it sorted, then will post instructions. Probably a bit late for this year's christmas. Chris

Hello Chris. I think that folded greeting cards can be done in SP once you figure out how to do a custom layout with guidelines to help you place your photo and then your text. Unfortunately I didn't have time to figure all that out. SP is not as intuitive as I had hoped, at least for customizing.

I was able to download a template and watch a how-to video from my greeting card photo paper supplier, Red River. Great company. The templates they offer are for using with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. They work great and I got my Christmas Cards formated, photo inserted and printed in less than an hour.

Too bad SP doesn't make this popular use easier in this age of digital home photography. Maybe in their next version? How about it, Nick?

I have used Swift Publisher for the past couple of years. The one thing I think is poorly designed is the complicated exercise you put a user through to produce a four page folded card. I am a user, not a programmer. I do about six cards a month. Each time I use Swift Publisher, I have to refer to my notes to get it done. I would use some other program, but none have the clip art selections such as you provide. So this is a request that you change the design so that it is easier to use. The rest of the program is not difficult to produce finished products and I really like it.

I prefer something simpler for the user. I just want to think about what I want on the card and not about positions and orientation. For example, when I want to do a four page folded card I would prefer that only the first page be on the screen at the start. When I have completed that page, I select a button and pages 2 and 3 appear on the screen. I place clip art and sayings on those two pages and when I am done I select the button to go to page 4. If I wanted to change something on page 1, I could go back to it and do my edits.

Each page would be shown as the reader of the card would see it.

Let the program order and rotate the pages for the printing. Computers are good at that. I am only fair at doing that. I grumble a lot when I think I have it right and I forget something and have to go correct it. Imposition is not my strong point.

Thank You for responding.

Print Shop does layouts of four page cards in the manner I like. I sometimes do have a problem in getting things on page 2 but that is another discussion.

I also purchased Swift Publisher to help me make greeting cards. I notice these posts dated 2010 and 2011, and I don't see any improvement in the facility to print cards with four page layouts. Am I missing something? The very old versions of Printshop were able to do this, so I imagine it must be possible.